Cricket: On-a-roll captain scents rare win

By Richard Boock

Only 24 hours after Steve Rixon had claimed the upper-hand in this one-day cricket series, Mohammad Azharuddin was asking for it back.

Shortly after his team had taken a 2-1 lead over New Zealand (with just tomorrow's match remaining), the Indian captain said he believed a coveted series win abroad was now well within his players' reach

His comments followed those of Rixon, who told reporters on Friday the Kiwis were in the "box-seat", and Christchurch was "where we'll wrap up the series win".

As it happened, however, New Zealand stumbled at Eden Park in the face of a demanding pitch and one of India's best all-round efforts, and can now only square the series - if they win tomorrow.

Azharuddin said India were a team who tended to take great encouragement from winning, and would be even more difficult to beat in Christchurch - given they had a chance to record a rare series win abroad.

"When we're winning, we try and keep up the tempo, and there'll be great resolve to beat New Zealand in Christchurch," he said after India's five-wicket victory at Eden Park.

"I thought we might have won by more, as with a little luck [Venkat] Prasad and [Javagal] Srinath could have taken more wickets early on. But we were very pleased. We bowled and fielded much better and that made a big difference."

Azharuddin said he was always going to insert the Kiwi team if he won the toss, but was hoping to bowl them out for less than 207.

"I've always said the Auckland pitch helps the seam bowlers, but by the same token we probably conceded about 25-30 runs too many, and that was a bit of a concern.

"On that wicket, anything approaching 230 would have been tough work, so we were becoming a little anxious when Harris, Nash and Vettori were batting so well at the end."